Software applications are created using one or more software development programs. Developers write source code to implement the desired functionality of a given software application. Once the source code is written, the software application is then compiled into the executable resources that will run on an end user's computer. In large software applications, there can be hundreds or thousands of different source code files and projects that need to be compiled. For such large software applications, it is often desirable to distribute the build process across multiple build machines. These build machines each participate by performing a designated portion of the build process.
In a typical distributed software build, one build machine may build a portion of the project that another build machine needs in order to complete its part of the build. In such situations, the resource must be copied from the first build machine to the second machine over a shared network. The amount of file input/output that occurs over the shared network can impact the performance of the build process. This is because the copying of resources over the shared network is typically slower than local file access. Thus, a large amount of copying of resources over the shared network in order to perform the build can slow down the overall build process.